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 * ORACLE PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL. Use is subject to license terms.
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/*
 * Copyright (c) 2009 by Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
 */

package javax.xml.stream.events;

import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
import javax.xml.namespace.NamespaceContext;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Iterator;

/**
 * The StartElement interface provides access to information about
 * start elements.  A StartElement is reported for each Start Tag
 * in the document.
 *
 * @version 1.0
 * @author Copyright (c) 2009 by Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
 * @since 1.6
 */
public interface StartElement extends XMLEvent {

    /**
     * Get the name of this event
     * @return the qualified name of this event
     */
    public QName getName();

    /**
     * Returns an Iterator of non-namespace declared attributes declared on
     * this START_ELEMENT,
     * returns an empty iterator if there are no attributes.  The
     * iterator must contain only implementations of the javax.xml.stream.Attribute
     * interface.   Attributes are fundamentally unordered and may not be reported
     * in any order.
     *
     * @return a readonly Iterator over Attribute interfaces, or an
     * empty iterator
     */
    public Iterator getAttributes();

    /**
     * Returns an Iterator of namespaces declared on this element.
     * This Iterator does not contain previously declared namespaces
     * unless they appear on the current START_ELEMENT.
     * Therefore this list may contain redeclared namespaces and duplicate namespace
     * declarations. Use the getNamespaceContext() method to get the
     * current context of namespace declarations.
     *
     * <p>The iterator must contain only implementations of the
     * javax.xml.stream.Namespace interface.
     *
     * <p>A Namespace isA Attribute.  One
     * can iterate over a list of namespaces as a list of attributes.
     * However this method returns only the list of namespaces
     * declared on this START_ELEMENT and does not
     * include the attributes declared on this START_ELEMENT.
     *
     * Returns an empty iterator if there are no namespaces.
     *
     * @return a readonly Iterator over Namespace interfaces, or an
     * empty iterator
     *
     */
    public Iterator getNamespaces();

    /**
     * Returns the attribute referred to by this name
     * @param name the qname of the desired name
     * @return the attribute corresponding to the name value or null
     */
    public Attribute getAttributeByName(QName name);

    /**
     * Gets a read-only namespace context. If no context is
     * available this method will return an empty namespace context.
     * The NamespaceContext contains information about all namespaces
     * in scope for this StartElement.
     *
     * @return the current namespace context
     */
    public NamespaceContext getNamespaceContext();

    /**
     * Gets the value that the prefix is bound to in the
     * context of this element.  Returns null if
     * the prefix is not bound in this context
     * @param prefix the prefix to lookup
     * @return the uri bound to the prefix or null
     */
    public String getNamespaceURI(String prefix);
}
